blowing up Greenpeace's flagship - the Rainbow Warrior

On Tuesday, September 13, 1988, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead, as well as Dr. Jason Clay, the director of Cultural Survival, Peter Bahouth, the Chairman of Greenpeace USA, and Randall Hayes, the Director of the Rainforest Action Network, sat down at the panel in conference room four of the United Nations and alerted the world's press to the horror of the vanishing rain forest.

When asked why the Grateful Dead was getting into the act and helping to publicize the plight of the rainforest, Jerry Garcia answered in his own inimitable style, "It seems pathetic that it has to be us, with all the other citizens of the planet, and all the other resources out there, but since no one else is doing anything about it, we don't really have any choice."

A dozen years earlier, when the Greenpeace mission had expanded from protesting nuclear proliferation to also include stopping commercial whaling, Country Joe McDonald not only played at a send-off concert for a Greenpeace ship in Vancouver in 1976, but he also dedicated his hit single "Save the Whales" to Greenpeace. The next year, when one of the Greenpeace ships, the James Bay, was docked in San Francisco and had no means to get back out on the high seas to continue chasing the whaling fleets, a group of Greenpeacers went to see Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, who was playing with the Jerry Garcia Band in Berkeley.

When the Greenpeacers laid out their dilemma to Jerry -- they needed $10,000 to fuel up the ship and buy provisions -- he was immediately open to the idea of doing a benefit concert. Five days later, on August 12th, 1977, the Jerry Garcia Band stood right there on San Francisco’s Pier 31, in front of the James Bay, and played to a sold-out crowd. The concert raised $20,000, and the James Bay sailed out of port on August 19, headed back out to help save the whales.

Jer playing the Travis Bean guitar with the Jerry Garcia BandBenefit for Greenpeace, with Maria Muldaur, at Pier 31, San Francisco, CA

Jerry Garcia:What we're thinking about is a peaceful planet. We're not thinking of anything else. We're not thinking about any kind of power. We're not thinking about any of those kinds of struggles. We're not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That's not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life, a simple life, a good life and think about moving the whole human race ahead a step.

Phil Lesh:I think that personally, the more people that turn on, the better world it's gonna be.

Bob Weir:You can point out the example that the people that live in the community and play around with dope and stuff like that - they don't have wars, you know. And they don't have a lot of the problems that alot of society has.

Phil Lesh:In essence, the scene has grown up with us, and we have grown up with the scene. We've all grown up together.